Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Ordie, the River

Ordé Braes

By Robert Nicoll (1814–1837)

THERE ’s nae hame like the hame o’ youth,

Nae ither spot sae fair;

Nae ither faces look sae kind

As the smilin’ faces there.

An’ I ha’e sat by mony streams,

Ha’e travelled mony ways;

But the fairest spot on the earth to me

Is on bonnie Ordé Braes.

An ell-lang wee thing then I ran

Wi’ the ither neebor bairns,

To pu’ the hazel’s shining nuts,

An’ to wander ’mang the ferns;

An’ to feast on the bramble-berries brown,

An’ gather the glossy slaes,

By the burnie’s side, an’ aye sinsyne

I ha’e loved sweet Ordé Braes.

The memories o’ my father’s hame,

An’ its kindly dwellers a’,

O, the friends I loved wi’ a young heart’s love

Ere care that heart could thraw,

Are twined wi’ the stanes o’ the silver burn,

An’ its fairy crooks an’ bays,

That onward sang ’neath the gowden broom

Upon bonnie Ordé Braes.

Aince on a day there were happy hames

By the bonnie Ordé’s side:

Nane ken how meikle peace an’ love

In a straw-roofed cot can bide.

But the hames are gane, an’ the hand o’ time

The roofless wa’s doth raze;

Laneness an’ sweetness hand in hand

Gang ower the Ordé Braes.

O, an’ the sun were shinin’ now,

An’ O, an’ I were there,

Wi’ twa three friends o’ auld langsyne,

My wanderin’ joy to share!

For though on the hearth o’ my bairnhood’s hame

The flock o’ the hills doth graze,

Some kind hearts live to love me yet

Upon bonnie Ordé Braes.